In general, historic trade bindings tend to stick to fairly consistent design aesthetics, so when you come across an anomaly it really sticks out. Look at the whacky corners on this little guy, which to me resemble little mouse ears:
Look how cute those corners are
This little odd volume is part of a larger set of military-themed publications (23 volumes total) that span about a decade across the turn of the 19th century. Interestingly however, the corners of all the bindings exhibit a fair amount of variation:
Corner variation clockwise from the top left: mouse-ear leather, straight leather, hidden parchment, straight parchment. The binding in the bottom right is a rebinding executed later in the 19th century.
I came across this eclectic series of bindings last summer while working with the great people* at the Boston Athenaeum under the FAIC’s Carolyn Horton Scholarship (more on her soon), and ever since have wondered at the variation exhibited by this set. From what I can tell, the volumes were all (barring the later 19th C. rebindings) bound within a short span of time as, in addition to the structural and overall visual consistency of the original bindings, all the different types of corners appear at different points throughout the set (for example the mouse ear corners appear on volumes 6,8, 19, 21, and 29).
Despite the fact that I’ve had almost a year to ponder these bindings, I am still no closer to explaining the corner variation, and my tiny brain reels when I think about the many, many possible explanations. At the very least I suppose it is a testament to the human need for variety, especially when one is faced with binding a bunch of two dozen volume sets…
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*A HUGE thank you to Dawn Walus and Mary Warnement of the Boston Athenaeum for their help in re-gathering the stats on the set. I somehow lost my notes when I returned home, but thanks to their efforts and ability to decipher my vague descriptions all was not lost! THANKS
Brien Beidler 